As a comment on this, my perspective is that operations is usually not sexy/fun/exciting when done properly. Different roles naturally have different levels public attention. People who publish well-received books or blogs, who start well-reputed organizations, are the voices on podcasts, and who give speeches at EAG and TEDx events get more public recognition. A part of it is luck, a part is marketing/PR (edit: I don’t want to ignore hard work and effort; that often plays a role also).
A somewhat related issue is that there seems to be a perception in EA that operations work is being an office manager or being an administrative assistant, which is not what the rest of the world understands operations or operations management to be.
In reading about William H. Tunner recently I came across this quote of his, and I found it quite apt in describing a lot of operations work: “The actual operation… is about as glamorous as drops of water on stone. There’s no frenzy, no flap, just the inexorable process of getting the job done.”
This quote from The Personal MBA also resonates: “great management is boring—and often unrewarding. The hallmark of an effective manager is anticipating likely issues and resolving them in advance, before they become an issue… Less skilled managers are actually more likely to be rewarded, since everyone can see them “making things happen” and “moving heaven and earth” to resolve issues—issues they may have created themselves via poor management.”
This comment was so good. The ending paragraph is amazing:
This quote from The Personal MBA also resonates: “great management is boring—and often unrewarding. The hallmark of an effective manager is anticipating likely issues and resolving them in advance, before they become an issue… Less skilled managers are actually more likely to be rewarded, since everyone can see them “making things happen” and “moving heaven and earth” to resolve issues—issues they may have created themselves via poor management.”
I really like how this points out the incentives where high functionality can be punished.
It seems heroic to setup a new org that fights COVID-19 across many continents, you can get press in the NYT, Vox, whatever.
Yet, another person who tracked down the first patients or caused a city to be locked down in the first few days might be far more effective, but despite this pay a high price for this behavior (e.g. many false positives; uncertainty is high).
It can be extremely costly and punishing to anticipate future events and act to prevent them. By its nature the people who are best at this, are often not understood.
Maybe increasing literacy of the issues, as well as institutional competence and capacity can help.
As a comment on this, my perspective is that operations is usually not sexy/fun/exciting when done properly. Different roles naturally have different levels public attention. People who publish well-received books or blogs, who start well-reputed organizations, are the voices on podcasts, and who give speeches at EAG and TEDx events get more public recognition. A part of it is luck, a part is marketing/PR (edit: I don’t want to ignore hard work and effort; that often plays a role also).
A somewhat related issue is that there seems to be a perception in EA that operations work is being an office manager or being an administrative assistant, which is not what the rest of the world understands operations or operations management to be.
In reading about William H. Tunner recently I came across this quote of his, and I found it quite apt in describing a lot of operations work: “The actual operation… is about as glamorous as drops of water on stone. There’s no frenzy, no flap, just the inexorable process of getting the job done.”
This quote from The Personal MBA also resonates: “great management is boring—and often unrewarding. The hallmark of an effective manager is anticipating likely issues and resolving them in advance, before they become an issue… Less skilled managers are actually more likely to be rewarded, since everyone can see them “making things happen” and “moving heaven and earth” to resolve issues—issues they may have created themselves via poor management.”
This comment was so good. The ending paragraph is amazing:
I really like how this points out the incentives where high functionality can be punished.
It seems heroic to setup a new org that fights COVID-19 across many continents, you can get press in the NYT, Vox, whatever.
Yet, another person who tracked down the first patients or caused a city to be locked down in the first few days might be far more effective, but despite this pay a high price for this behavior (e.g. many false positives; uncertainty is high).
It can be extremely costly and punishing to anticipate future events and act to prevent them. By its nature the people who are best at this, are often not understood.
Maybe increasing literacy of the issues, as well as institutional competence and capacity can help.